


the boy and his cars

by shesapaintbynumber



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, M/M, Ronan Lynch Loves Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-10-28 09:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10828545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shesapaintbynumber/pseuds/shesapaintbynumber
Summary: On principle, Adam Parrish hated fundraisers.(or the one where adam washes cars at a fundraiser and ronan doesn't know how to be civil)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was unedited and written at 3am. I clearly don't know Latin.

**Adam**

On principle, Adam Parrish hated fundraisers. They went against everything he stood for. Even if the Swim Team’s Car Wash wasn’t held on a Saturday during his normal shift at the garage, it was still humiliating.

He didn’t want to come, but all of the team had to participate. He needed an extra-curricular program to boost his college applications, and swim had seemed the most convenient. They practiced early in the morning, and meets were almost always held during school hours.

Adam had arrived late to the fundraiser, which meant that he got to do the actual car washing, rather than holding signs or selling roadside concessions. In a way, it didn’t bother him. They physical labor was mindless and second nature. He could mentally recite formulas while rinsing a car off, so his time wasn’t completely wasted.

Another upside was the lack of Raven Boys. A car wash would mean some lower class kid washing their Land Rover, which they would never allow. Most of the customers were minivan moms and old couples with trucks and beer bellies.

Adam finished sponging down a beige sedan and stretched. His grey shirt had gotten soaked due to the antics of some of the team members, and the slight morning breeze was chilling him in the late morning sun. There were only two hours left, and then he could go in for an extended shift at the trailer factory. It wasn’t as many hours as he usually worked, but it was better than nothing.

Someone clapped him on the shoulder and Adam jolted. Heart hammering, he spun around and found Mitchell Freestone (the swim captain) looking almost apologetic.

“Sorry, kid.” He removed his hand and rubbed his neck. “You should probably take a break but--would you mind?’  
Mitchell made a vague gesture in the direction towards the black BMW that had just pulled into the line.

‘ _Yes_ ’ Adam thought. _‘I do mind. I don’t want pity from a rich Aglionby bastard._ ’ But he shrugged and headed over.

The door of the BMW opened, and a boy no older than Adam got out. The boy thrust a $20 in Adam’s face, and Adam was immediately fired up. He could feel the arrogance radiating off of this boy, with his shaved head and intentionally ripped jeans.

“Scratch my fucking car and you’re dead, got it?”  
“ _Excuse me_?” Adam felt his anger flare up and fought to push it down.

The boy just stared at him in a way that felt equal parts incredulous and condescending. He had already paid, so it wasn’t as though Adam could refuse to wash his car.

Swearing profusely under his breath, Adam grabbed a hose and began the tedious process of washing Sir Angsty Buzzcut’s shark-nosed beemer.

Objectively, Adam thought the BMW he was washing looked cool. It was sleek and had character, and Adam couldn’t help but feel envious. However, it was hard to admire the car with it’s owner breathing down his neck.

Currently, he was sponging off the top of the car. Adam was sure that if he flipped around, he and Angsty Buzzcut would bump heads. It unnerved him to have someone so close with no escape route. Taking a few deep breaths, he spoke.

“I’m not going to nick your precious beemer. So could you please back off? I’ll be done in a couple of minutes.”  
Angsty Buzzcut scoffed from behind him. “Some of us have shit to do after this.”

At this remark, Adam was fuming. He whipped around (thankfully, the boy wasn’t as close to him as he’d feared) and stared the teen down.  
“I’ve got stuff to do too! I should be at work or studying, but instead I get to wash cars for spoiled punks like you that get off on making my life hell. God, just give me some space to finish your damn car.”

Angsty Buzzcut raised an eyebrow. “You talk to all your customers that way? _Ego placet vidi tu purgat carrus._ ”

Adam didn’t respond to this. He knew a few words of Latin, but as a whole the phrase eluded him. From the boy's smirk, he guessed it wasn’t anything positive. Adam went back to work and, thankfully, the teen was no longer as close to him.

In a few minutes, the car was clean. Adam turned back around.

“Thank you for helping support the Henrietta High Swim Team.” He said this in a way that made it clear how unhelpful the kid had been.

The kid gave him a grin as shark-like as his car. “You’re fucking welcome.”

“I have to say it to everyone I help. Don’t feel special.”

Adam stalked away from the BMW, trying to uncoil the anger knotted in his stomach. One day he’d own a car like that and, unlike the bastard he’d just helped, he wouldn’t act so arrogantly.

Mitchell walked back over to him. “Thanks for handling that car.”

Adam handed over the twenty. “Wasn’t worth it. That kid was an ass.”

“Aren’t all Raven Boys?”

Adam felt a pang of envy and anger. He made a decision then, one that he'd been turning over in his mind since the day at the grocery store. Adam was going to take the Aglionby entrance exam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ego placet vidi tu purgat carrus—i enjoy watching you wash my car


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Early morning introspection with Adam Parrish

**Adam**

Adam quit the swim team after a month. He couldn’t believe the error he’d made. Swimming! Of all things he could have done, swimming had been the least practical. It wasn’t that Adam was bad at the sport—swimming came as naturally to him as biking—but there were only so many meets he could miss, and his father’s temper ensured that he would be missing _all_ of them.

His teammates never commented on the bruises, but he didn’t want unearned attention from spectators and opposing teams. It would feel too much like surrendering. Unfortunately, Adam had delayed quitting, and by the time he’d left the team it was too late to sign up for another sport.

_Worthless. Aglionby can’t wash the dirt from you._

Adam shook his head as he finished changing a tire, trying to clear his thoughts. Adam wasn’t sure that he would pass the Aglionby entrance exam, and even if he did, there was no guarantee he’d get a scholarship he could afford. He didn’t think there’d been a student to Aglionby under a scholarship before.

Adam stood up and went to the back of Boyd’s Auto shop to clock out. One good thing to come from dropping swim was that he could pick up a morning shift at the auto shop. It was a shift that began at five in the morning, but as Adam’s father was fond of telling him, _beggars can’t be choosers_. (The Robert Parrish version tended to include more slurs and profanity, but the message was essentially the same.)

He arrived at school twenty minutes before his first class and used the time to study. Adam was a ferocious student, but the public school system hadn’t prepared him for the rigor that Aglionby would present. There were so many things he didn’t know, and the cramming was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying.

Adam’s lust for knowledge was endless and encompassing. Some days, the weight of everything he didn’t know pressed on his chest like a two-ton rhinoceros, threatening to collapse his lungs. Other days the weight seemed more bearable, but it was always there. Always looming. Adam learned on his own when he could, but time was a commodity he couldn’t afford to misuse. Free time was now exclusively for Aglionby preparations and working. Aglionby could be his way out, and Adam would be damned if he let the opportunity slip by.

* * *

Adam walked out of the exam room feeling light. He felt like a balloon that had just been cut. This was the moment of zipping blissfully upward before getting caught on a powerline or tree. For the first time, Aglionby was within his grasp. _If_ he got in, _if_ he could afford it, _if_ he didn’t have to miss too much school...Adam could hardly breathe. He wasn’t sure how if he could make the trip in his bike everyday. He didn’t know where he would find a uniform. He wouldn’t sure if his father would even let him go, but he didn’t care. It would work. It _had_ to work.

He couldn’t stand to wait, but waiting was all he could do now. His results would be released in a month. With studying out of the way for the moment, Adam could work doubles and early morning shifts. Thanking the woman that had proctored the test, he grabbed his pencil and quickly left. It was a Saturday and, presumably, most of the Raven Boys would still be asleep in their dorms, but Adam didn't want to chance running into anyone. He didn't want to deal with them when he was feeling so hopeful.

Adam made the bike to work in record time.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School and Ronan—a lethal combination?

**Ronan**

Gansey was making exactly zero effort to be quiet as he was got ready for school. In fact, Gansey being Gansey, he was probably being extra loud just to wake Ronan up.

It wasn't as though Ronan was going to miss  _ all _ of school—he would show up third period for intermediate Latin—it was just that the first day of school felt even more useless than the other days. It would be six hours of course disclosures and introductions, and, if Ronan was especially unlucky, schoolwork.

Ronan scratched his head and got up. Stumbling to the fridge/bathroom/laundry, he saw Gansey grinning into the mirror, fussing with his hair. He was humming something that sounded suspiciously like Smash Mouth. Spotting Ronan, Gansey turned.

“Oh, you're up?” He feigned surprise.

“Fuck you,” Ronan growled, grabbing milk out of the fridge for cereal. “Just because I’m awake now doesn’t mean I’ll go to school with you.”

Gansey huffed, turning back to the mirror to fix his tie. “It’s the first day back. We won’t even be  _ doing _ anything.”  

“What’s the point of going, then?” 

Ronan slammed open the makeshift cupboards, searching for a cereal box that wasn’t empty. The back of one yielded an unopened box of Lucky Charms. The irony was not lost on him.

“Who bought this box of shit?” He waved the box between Gansey and the mirror.

Gansey paused, contemplating. “I think Noah. He mentioned liking the marshmallows.”

Ronan whirled around, slapping the box on the counter with more force than was strictly necessary. Ignoring Gansey’s pained expression, he poured a bowl.

“Ronan.”

“ _ Gansey. _ ” Ronan mocked.

Pulling at his shirt one more time, Gansey left the room to grab his bag. He paused at the door to Monmouth manufacturing.

“Come on, Ronan. Show up. Declan might die of shock if you do.”

Ronan groaned and slammed the fridge door twice for effect. “It’s too damn early to be mentioning Dicklan.  _ God _ , Gansey.”  _ It was always too early to talk about Declan _ . 

Ronan shut the door one more time to be sure he got the message.

Even from across the floor, Gansey’s sigh was audible. “I’ll see you in Latin, then.” 

He closed the front door, and after a moment Ronan heard the Pig grumble to life. Once Gansey was firmly off the premises, Ronan stalked back to his room, breakfast in hand. With the hand not currently holding the bowl, he switched on the sound system that sat opposite his bed. Electronic loops filled Monmouth and he cranked the volume until the floor was all but pulsing with sound. After a moment a door cracked open, and the third resident of Monmouth manufacturing made his appearance.

Ronan wasn’t completely sure when Noah had entered the picture. He seemed to be as much a part of Monmouth as Gansey or Ronan, but Ronan couldn’t be sure when he had moved in. His scruffy blond hair and impish expression made him seem younger, but Noah was older than the other boys. Ronan could never get an exact age, but he would guess Noah was mid-twenties. He was an Aglionby alumni that had stayed in Henrietta after graduating.

Now that he was thinking about it, Ronan didn’t know where Noah had stayed before Monmouth. Perhaps he had come with the house, like a residential cat. The thought made him smirk.

Noah stood in the doorway, scrubbing his face with the back of his hand. Several days without shaving had left him with the beginnings of a beard. “Being  _ this _ loud  _ this _ early should be illegal.”

Ronan grinned. “You know you  _ adore _ me.” 

Noah responded by flipping Ronan off and going back into his room, shutting the door with a ferocity barely heard over the music.

Noah reemerged a few minutes later, cleanly shaven, just as Ronan was finishing off his bowl of cereal. Spotting Ronan’s bowl, Noah pouted. 

“You woke me up  _ and _ you’re eating my Lucky Charms? That’s cold.”

“Don’t buy shit cereal next time.” Ronan ignored his accusation.

“I can’t help it! The marshmallows turn the milk all colorful. It’s so cool.”

“They turn the milk into green sludge. How can you enjoy that?” Ronan held up his bowl of tinted milk. “Fucking gross.”

Noah stuck his tongue out, and then grinned. “What would happen if you put coffee in your cereal instead of milk? Caffeinated Lucky Charms—imagine  _ that _ .”

“You’re a heathen.”

Unperturbed, Noah bounded into the kitchen, no doubt to fix himself the first of many pots of coffee. He returned three minutes later with a bowl in hand.

“In case you’re wondering,” Noah told Ronan between bites, “this is fucking disgusting. I want to pull my tongue out.”

He offered the bowl to Ronan. It was warm, and the coffee was dissolving the cereal to sludge. He took a bite and promptly gagged. It was soggy and terribly bitter. How could Noah  _ keep _ eating it? He shoved the bowl back into Noah’s hands.

“Like I said earlier, you’re a godless heathen.”

Noah nodded solemnly. “Maybe if I use iced coffee next time.”

He stopped moving for a moment, then turned and patted Ronan on the head. This was a feat remarkable for both the difference in height and Ronan’s tolerance of it. If anyone but Matthew or Noah tried that, they would quickly find themselves one hand short. Ronan wasn’t sure why he let Noah get away with it. Maybe it was pity. Noah’s glassy eyes made him look like he was always close to tears.

“Thanks for the advice, Ronan.” 

“What the hell.”

Noah padded back to his room, still eating the coffee-bathed cereal. 

“Go to school, Ronan. Oh, and—” he fixed Ronan with a glare that was probably supposed to be intimidating. “Turn off that god-awful stereo before you go.”

Ronan grinned sharply and went to get dressed.

He did  _ not _ turn off the stereo when he left.

* * *

 

Ronan walked into Latin ten minutes after class had begun. Barrington Whelk looked up from the board only when Ronan slammed the door behind him. 

“Mr. Lynch, so nice of you to join.” Whelk said this tonelessly. Ronan had been in Latin the last couple years, and the two had reached an unspoken agreement. It was an agreement that mostly involved Whelk ignoring Ronan and his crude jokes.

Whelk continued his lecture on course objectives, and Ronan moved to take his place beside Gansey. When he dropped his bag to the floor, Gansey huffed.

“If you’re only going to come to one class, you could at  _ least _ come on time.”

Ronan didn’t answer. He opted, instead, to look around the class. Most of his classmates he recognized from last year, but a couple faces were unfamiliar. Directly ahead and to the left was a boy that caught his attention. He had hair that reminded Ronan of the time his dad tried to grow corn at the Barns. It was a dusty golden-brown, and somehow managed to look both silky and stiff. He was hunched over, writing furiously into a notebook. His hair hung in his face as he did, obscuring his features from Ronan.

Ronan was struck with a peculiar sense of deja vu. This boy looked so familiar that it unnerved him. There was a possibility that he had passed him in the supermarket, but it felt like more than that. He concentrated, trying to recall exactly where he had seen the boy. Something about… cars, maybe?

It wasn’t until the bell rang that Ronan remembered him. The boy from the car wash. What was  _ he _ doing at Aglionby? He looked as out of place as the time Kavinsky had come to mass with him and his brothers . Smirking, Ronan followed the boy to the door. Right as the boy reached the door frame, Ronan spoke.

“Hey, look. It’s Fundraiser Boy. You still do car washes? I could use another one.”

The boy flipped around. For a moment his eyes were narrowed in confusion, then they cleared. He scowled, and Ronan saw he was clenching his fists. It was almost too easy to mess with him. 

“Excuse me,” the boy said, venom dripping from his carefully clipped words.

He moved to leave but Ronan pushed past him before he could, shoving him into the frame as he did so. The boy let out a hiss of pain, and Ronan shot a heartless grin over his shoulder. The boy responded with a look of complete loathing. As Ronan stalked off he heard Gansey, no doubt apologizing on Ronan’s behalf.

* * *

 

Gansey caught up with Ronan in the parking lot. It was lunchtime, and Ronan was planning to grab a burger before heading back to Monmouth.

“What the fuck, Ronan.” He stepped next to the BMW, preventing Ronan from leaving.

“Don’t swear, Gansey. It sounds wrong when you say it.” 

Gansey scowled, and Ronan tried to feel bad for his sake. It didn’t work.

“Seriously, Ronan,” Gansey tried again. “Do you even know who that was?  _ Adam Parrish _ . The scholarship student. Being at a decent school like this is most likely terribly new to him, and the first day is overwhelming as it is. Can’t you let him be?”

Ronan felt something that, under different circumstances, he would have described as jealousy. But there was no way Ronan was jealous of Gansey paying attention to a  _ scholarship _ student. It was ridiculous. 

“Why are you bothering to protect that white trash?” 

“Can you hear yourself right now?”

Ronan rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Now move, I’m leaving.”

Gansey stepped wordlessly out of the way, still staring at Ronan in the parental,  _ I’m disappointed in you _ way he often did. Ronan got a meal from McDonald’s and ate it on the way back to Monmouth.

_ Adam Parrish. _ Could there be a more mundane name?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noah!!   
> And speaking from experience, coffee and cereal are nasty together.


End file.
